Arguments 'mere point scoring'

Paul Ward, Chairman, Europeans For Medical Advancement, London W13

12:01AM GMT 14 Feb 2002

SIR - Mr Turlington cites the development of the polio vaccine as attributable to monkey experiments. Albert Sabin (the polio vaccine inventor) said on April 26, 1984: "Work on the [polio] vaccine was long delayed by the erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease, based on misleading experimental models of the disease in monkeys."

It is just as easy to cite examples where drugs passed as safe in animal tests have maimed and killed humans, but the point-scoring exercise leads us nowhere.

The animal research debate is likely to remain stuck in a rhetorical quagmire unless we critically examine the methodology of experiments on animals and scientifically determine the efficacy of the practice.

Current regulations also need to be evaluated scientifically. Just because a law exists does not mean that it is based on good science. Our lives depend on it.